Heart of Oak and Legs of Steel

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 922, 15 March 1930, Page 12

Heart of Oak and Legs of Steel

GREENLINE THE GREAT

WONDERFUL SPRINTER Simply because he won the Xe\ymarket with 10.2 and accomplished what no other horse in half a century I has been able Greenline can’t be | classed as the greatest sprinter of j the period, but lie certainly is a great horse with a heart of oak’and legs of steel, comments a Sydney writer. Every time he has appeared for the last year or more he has been comj pelled to lump heavy weights, and the I wonder is that he has got through carnival after carnival without a serious breakdown. Horses racing at top speed with liu- | posts such as Greenline carried in the Carrington Stakes and the Newmarket i must be subjected to a terrific strain. 1 Yet Greenline takes on the speedy ! squibs, holds his own with them, and j comes up for more. He must have a constitution of iron. . His misfortune is that he doesn't : possess much stamina, and so there | isn't any alternative for him but to ! keep on bearing the tremendous burj dens that handicappers have to impose on him because of his brilliance. What Weight Now? Goodness knows what the handicap - pers will do with him now that lie has managed to win the Newmarket with 10.2. It is hard to know whether it is a slap in the eye for the V.R.C. handicapper or a feather in his cap. He needed a good deal of courage to make Greenline concede Amounis 41b in the Newmarket. His judgment looked worse after Amounis had decisively beaten Greenline in the Futurity. This made it appear as if either Greenline had been badly treated in the Newmarket or that the handicapper had been too indulgent with Amounis, who is unquestionably the best horse in Australia today up to a mile, and a-quarter, and who Avon a six-furlongs Aveiglit-for-age race, beating the brilliant New Zealander, Paganelli, at Canterbury Park. However, Amounis saved all arguments and post-mortems by dropping out of the NeAvmarket, and the handi-

capper was able to say that the result proved’ that he hadn't been too harsh Avith Green line.

Weight doesn’t seem to impair the speed of this marvellous thoroughbred. Avho outstripped 26 of the swiftest horses in the Commomvealth, to whom he Avas conceding from 21 to 511 b. It has been definitely proved now that the Flemington straight is his course.